CDV of Identified Double-Armed Union Cavalryman with Carbine and Saber, KIA

Albumen hand-gilt and tinted CDV. [Pleasant Valley, Maryland], circa April 1864. Mount verso features a large five-pointed star rendered in black and red ink with a patriotic motif in red ink at center. With contemporary red ink inscription identifying the subject: “Henry Lever / Beaumont Camp / Pleasant Valley / Md.”

An excellent full-length portrait of fully-kitted cavalryman Henry Lever. He stands in his uniform, boots, and forage cap while holding his unsheathed saber against his arm, the scabbard resting against his opposite leg. A carbine is suspended from what appears to be a freshly-issued shoulder belt. Lever’s buttons, buckles, sword hilt, and other fittings are delicately hand-gilt.

HDS records that Henry Lever of Washington County, Pennsylvania enlisted as a private on 13 October 1862 and mustered into Company E of the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry on the same day. As the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry was not organized until 22 February 1864, he almost certainly originally served with Captain A.J. Barr’s Patton Company (organized on 14 October 1862) of the Ringgold Battalion, which recruited men from Washington County. They were mostly stationed in the Upper Potomac region of West Virginia before their consolidation with the 22nd Cavalry (6-month organization).

In April 1864, 700 men were transferred to Pleasant Valley, Maryland where they received horses and equipment. Perhaps these are newly issued weapons and accouterment and Lever seized the opportunity to show them off in this portrait. Tragically just a few months after his likeness was captured, Lever died at New Creek Road, West Virginia on 28 June 1864. Though his cause of death is not specified, it is possibly from wounds received from a skirmish at Panther Gap, West Virginia, where the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry lost with 4 killed and 6 wounded.

A proud cavalryman with a particularly charming mount.

[Civil War, Union, Confederate, Militaria, Early Photography, CDVs, Carte de Visite, Albumen Photography] [Daguerreotype, Ambrotype, Tintype, CDV, Albumen, carte-de-visite, Salt print, Cabinet Card] [Civil War, Union, Confederate]